Tuesday, June 28, 2011

A few weeks ago I saw my neighbor in our adjoining yard. Our girls play together almost daily now that it is summer time. They have the latest and greatest sprinkler and that seems to attract my girls like flies to honey.
My neighbor asked if I would be up for helping her out with a crafty project. Is the pope Catholic right? The skinny on the project is that she wanted a quilt. But, I'm no quilter. Yes, I know my way around a sewing machine, but quilting is truly another genre of which I have limited knowledge and admittedly limited patience.

My only attempt at quilting was a few years ago when I thought my girls needed doll quilts. Neither one of them is particularly fond of dolls, and they rarely play with the 3 dolls we seem to own, but that would not deter me. And, I made them each a cute little doll quilt.

Here it is. It normally sits folded neatly in a closet. I can't honestly say whether a doll has actually enjoyed the warmth of this quilt. But the colors are fabulous right? And that ended my quilting career. Or, so I thought.

My neighbor went on to explain that the quilt she wanted was for an old friend's 3 year old daughter who has neuroblastoma and will hopefully be in complete remission very soon. The little girl has been in treatment since she was under 2 years old. She knows nothing but hospitals, chemo, and treatment plans. Because of her port-a-catheter she's never been swimming. (Which reportedly she wants to do this summer.) My neighbor sent each one of her friend's a quilt square and some fabric paint and told them to use their imagination on one square each, she would figure out how to make a quilt come to life from 12 painted squares.

That is apparently where I came in. Make these 12 squares into something a soon to be healthy three year old would like to snuggle up with as she watches princess movies. I again warned my neighbor of my less than stellar quilting skills and she said she didn't care. She just wanted help.

So we picked the softest flannel we could find shopping online in her kitchen. I waited for her to call me telling me that the fabric had arrived. I also spent my week seeing doctors for my own ahem, situation. About 4 weeks ago I learned that my cancer, now 10 years in remission, was caused by a hereditary gene mutation. After 4 weeks and umpteen thousands of dollars worth of mammograms, MRIs, and ultrasounds it has been determined that I was and am still healthy. But I have some choices to make about how best to keep myself healthy. Apparently, people with this gene mutation don't fight cancer cells and tumors like the general population. Multiple breast cancers and ovarian cancers are common in people like me with the bum gene. A method for repairing the gene and DNA hasn't been invented yet. The only way to truly protect yourself and lower the statistics for more cancer is lots of surgery. If it doesn't exist, tumors can't grow on it. Nice, right? Yes, I've had some grim thoughts in the "Seriously, this is the lottery I won?" In efforts to channel the energy to positive I decided to tackle the quilt for Paige, the little girl, who like me sadly knows all about cancer. Oh, and I decided to change my diet as well. But that is another post.

Without further ado, here is Paige's less than perfect, but quilted with love 12 square quilt.